I've just returned from a fortnight's trip to the USA, staying with friends and doing readings. This is the first of a series of blogs on that experience..........

I knew everything about the States and I knew nothing. Nothing truly prepares you for what's coming : not the movies or the songs, not The Simpsons or Glee (my young daughter's obsessions). It was my first time. 'An American virgin!' I declared to a chuckling audience of students at Le Moyne College in Syracuse. I landed at Dulles airport in DC and had a negative impression : security was even tighter than Heathrow. I'd already practically stripped off and removed all metal from my body, including the plate in my skull (with some difficulty!). At Dulles, they took everyone's finger and thumb prints and x-rayed down to the bone. Unlike the effortlessly relaxed and efficient Vancouver of my homeward journey, the place was singularly chaotic. Staff looked stressed and seriously lacking in numbers. Announcements were totally inaudible and the plane delayed with 'computer problems'. Boarding the small jet to Syracuse, NY state, there were further delays when a mechanic (who wore the yellow vest of a road-worker) tried to tackle more 'computer problems'. Normally a calm flier, I was very tired and anxious by the time we took off. I sat next to an enormous sweaty guy who resembled an American footballer and sneezed his germs in my direction. However, flying over Finger Lakes and down to Syracuse was worth waiting for : the whole horizon lit up with a strip of bright red with dark above it ; the skyline glowing. It was wonderful to be welcomed by my good friend Dave Lloyd, a Professor at Le Moyne and later his wife Kim and daughter Nia. I have known Dave since we were 19 year-olds at Aber Uni. and he was editor of the college literary magazine 'Dragon'. Their small black dog Molly barked at me furiously ( she has an aversion to men, especially tall ones with dark glasses). I'm not tall, don't wear shades, but do qualify for the gender part. Slowly I won Molly over though, particularly when Dave , myself and her went on an exploration through the land where his garden becomes a wild area, akin to a Nature Reserve. Nose to ground and sniffing frantically, the little black dog led the way through waist-high weeds and bulrushes, following the tracks of deer, beaver and squirrels (both black and grey). A dog's paradise I'm sure, this orgy of aromas. I was more taken by the strong scents of pine from above and wild mint from below, as we made our way through this remarkable country close to Dave's house 'Bryn Hyfryd' (his parents were Welsh-speakers who moved to Utica, NY). Dave was the perfect guide, telling me how the beaver usually appeared at dusk, having learnt to avoid daylight because that's when they had been killed by Man. I just caught sight of one's head; just a moment and hardly a ripple. He showed me the stump of a gnawed branch and whole trees felled by them. I saw the edges of the large pond where they'd built up packed mud, the skilfully-built lodge and dam designed to keep some water always flowing. There was a tree split in half where a deer-hunter had once built a hide, intending to shoot the ubiquitous animals. Dave had left a polite note warning the hunter and amazingly he had taken heed. This is deer country and they were everywhere and nowhere (seen, then gone into shade) ; drawn to Dave and Kim's apple trees, we'd encounter them late night crossing the road, not tame but hardly shy of humans. The large studio next to the house where Kim sometimes works on her sculptures was once a slaughterhouse for deer. How fitting that a vegetarianartist should now occupy such a space: the gentle blood of creative flow replacing the violent gush of killing. Further down from the pond, we followed the creek past an abandoned car, stolen then torched years ago (some things seem familiar). Many forest sounds I couldn't identify (I needed my brother there, the expert 'twitcher'). Countless hawks and other birds of prey and surely a blue jay, away where I couldn't glimpse it. All the way along to a waterfall, a curtain of rushing white despite the 'Indian Summer' of early Fall. The house of a man perched to its left, who regarded it all as his own property and would, Dave told me, shout at anyone who swam in the plunge-pool below. Magical country, so close to the large clapperboard houses of affluent America with their star-spangled banners displayed (no special celebration, Dave and Kim concluded). Later I would get a sense of Syracuse itself, a city once made great by the Erie Canal and all the industry which grew up around it. But for now, I simply sat in wonder, gazing out on their garden which gradually merged into a land the Native Americans must have known so intimately, where the only routes were made by deer and beaver and not the heavy tread of mankind. TO FRONTIER / TO WILDERNESS

Led by the small black dog down the shaved lane of lawn sniffing close to ground

to frontier to wilderness

calls of hawks of herons ghost dances of Indians

following deer trail beaver run pausing at gnawed-out tree tooth-grain of flesh bark

packed mould of mud at rim of pond daytime water unstirred except waking ring of fish